You misunderstand. Hodgson doesn't want his team to dominate possession or play the kind of football you see from Italy. He wants the midfield to sit deep, not press so as not to lose shape, and to utilise long balls from the back. Roy is still living on tactics from the 1970s.

England will play plenty of friendlies in between now and the WC and you'll see this even clearer.

Such crap

England simply dont have the skill to do so!

Gerrard was excellent in the first few games but Pirlo embarrassed him tonight

It was man vs boys and Woy knew it was coming

Give the guy credit for taking an incredibly limited team to penalties

I thought Pirlo's performance was way overrated tbh - apart from the penalty that is. It's not too hard to play accurate long balls when the opposition midfielders aren't closing you down.

Ha ha!! Because he is escaping from said pressure and england forwards couldn't be bothered after 30 mins. He was so much better than anyone else for most of the game. If Balo can actually shoot it would've been over in 90 mins.

But that penalty woof!! Italian players were almost laughing after that one, took the pressure off after montolivo's awful miss.

Gerrard was excellent in the first few games but Pirlo embarrassed him tonight

It was man vs boys and Woy knew it was coming

Give the guy credit for taking an incredibly limited team to penalties

England were being outpassed by the teams in the group stage. It didn't take a great team to do that and England will always chase games in a flat midfield 4. But Hodgson didn't make the adjustment and relied on one of the forwards to do the most important job in the game - mark Pirlo. They should have just played a 4-2-3-1 with a midfield trio of Henderson, Gerrard and Parker with Henderson man marking Pirlo. The guy is 33 years old, and they let him walk around everywhere not hassled most of the time.

As I said, this will be even more obvious in the coming friendlies and qualifiers.

Yeah, I may be letter Taylor himself cloud my memories of that team somewhat. In any event, whether you compare this side to the 1994 one or not, it's certainly the worst since.

Though having said that, I honestly believe there's more spirit about this England side than previous ones in recent memory. Not that it did them any good I suppose.

Well, I actually think the side back then was decent, but the manager was by far the worse. Gazza got injured so draft in Carlton. Waddle Voted euro player of the year, or it may have been second, draft in Andy Sinton instead. We had decent talent then, but GT always liked the functional tryers. I'd say in quality many squads have been worse than what could have been picked then.

yeah, he's a decent shout, we had enough to qualify then, but we weren't outstanding. Sven and Fab drilled out the easy qualifying, and made it look like a formality, I really wonder if that'll happen again.

It's almost like it's ignored we failed to qualify in major tournaments in 74, 78, 84. 94. 08, and we've been so close to failing so many times with other teams winning when they don't have to, or last 10 minute goals, I've never got why we're so arrogant about qualifying, and don't give any credit to managers that do.

One thing you have to give Roy credit for is getting the team chemistry right. Am I right in saying this has been the first England team in ages where the team actually seemed united and not a bunch of primadonnas thrown together to make a team?

Not since Euro 96 and Italia 90 have we been as united. Strangely we overperformed in those 2 competitions too.

If Woy gets a clear run without injuries i'd fancy us to be quarter finalists in the World Cup too. About our level anyway on a good day, anything else and he a magician.

Well, I actually think the side back then was decent, but the manager was by far the worse. Gazza got injured so draft in Carlton. Waddle Voted euro player of the year, or it may have been second, draft in Andy Sinton instead. We had decent talent then, but GT always liked the functional tryers. I'd say in quality many squads have been worse than what could have been picked then.

Taylor will always go down as the worst England manager ever imho.

Did Waddle actually play for Taylor?

Euro 92 is the first tournament I can properly remember (my memory of Italia 90 is pretty foggy), I don't ever remember actually seeing Waddle play for England.

Seem to remember him being injured for all the WC94 qualifiers, or not being picked once for. Couldn't tell you about the Euro 92 quals as I only remember the second half of th last qualifier, away to Poland. First half wasn't televised, Lineker equalised late on to take us through.